Dress #119: Charles James ballgown in pale blue and blue-green (Copy)

This hand-stitched paper dress is based on a ballgown created by Charles James between 1950-1952; the original is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession C.I. 65.36.1). For this ballgown, James took inspiration from the late nineteenth century with swags of pale blue silk satin gathered at the front and back over a blue-green silk taffeta underskirt, forming a miniature bustle.

Charles James is considered by the Met to be the ‘only American to work in the true couture tradition’. His dresses were complicated constructions, many of them created through draping on the bodies of his customers, or using custom dress forms that combined the measurements of his customer with the fanciful contours used to sculpt the dresses into the desired shapes.

The dress is six inches tall, stitched by hand on 8x10 inch 100% cotton watercolour paper, which means that it will pop right into any commercial frame in that size, and be ready to hang on your wall.

Materials: Decorative paper and cotton floss on cotton paper; 24.5 x 20.3 cm (10 x 8")